Sharing
by Fitful
Summary: Will you take the boy." He snapped impatiently. Snape's eyes narrowed at the man. "That boy is your son." "I'm aware of that." Potter's eyes grew hard. "He's also Lily's."


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So Fitful here. I've got a new story for you. I have ideas that could lead to many more chapters, even a sequel, but I really want to work on Saith so for now this is all you get. Enjoy.

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Warning: Not much in the first chapter beyond grief and animosity. If I write other chapters there will be pre-slash, slash, chan, snarry, and all those goodies.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, it's characters, or anything you might recognize. If I did I would have never killed off Snape.

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Backstory: Voldemort didn't go after the Potter's until Harry was seven, although Snape did become a spy around the same time he did originally. Only Lily died, much in the same manor as she did in canon. Harry doesn't go to the Dursleys. This is obviously an AU.

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Summary: "Will you take the boy." He snapped impatiently. Snape's eyes narrowed at the man. "That boy is your son." "I'm aware of that." Potter's eyes grew hard. "He's also Lily's."

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Sharing

by Fitful

"You are pathetic, Potter."

Potter's eyes slid away from his and a fleeting grimace stretched his pale face grotesquely. Stubbornly they locked onto the freshly turned soil.

"Your commentary isn't needed, Snivellous." Although the old insult made Snape stiffen it lacked the familiar malice. Potter said it so brokenly it almost negated the insult with the pleasure of seeing Potter brought so low. If it weren't for the circumstances of the situation Snape would have crowed in delight.

"Since when have I ever needed an invitation to insult you?" The retort had no affect on Potter whatsoever and Snape sneered as he made no effort to even pretend to be offended. Potter merely stared at the name on the grave's marker as if by sheer disbelief it would disappear. As if he were the only one in the world who had lost Lily.

It was raining. Soft wet plops had begun to fall an hour ago and now covered the graveyard. The freshly turned soil had darkened and the graveyard grew quiet as the rain muted sound.

Snape hated the graveyard. He hated the inane summary of Lily Evans on the gravestone and he hated the smell of soil that marked her forever gone. More so he hated Potter standing there lost in such a weakness as grief. It made it poor sport to even insult the bastard as it was taking advantage of Lily's death. Not that it stopped him but it did make him fight back a grimace when he only wanted to enjoy Potter's pain. She would have disapproved.

Snape wanted to leave. He wanted to turn around right there and never look back. It should have been his right to stand there and grieve so openly but Potter had even robbed him of that. Once he left the graveyard he planned on never returning. For the first time in his life he longed for Spinner's End and it's solitude. There he could mourn. Sharing grief with Potter was the last thing Snape wanted to do.

"Well, Snape?" Potter finally broken his way back into reality, sounding impatient suddenly. He never looked up.

"Well what, Potter."

Hazel eyes snapped to Snape's as a weak rendition of the old animosity flared. "Will you take the boy." He snapped impatiently.

Snape's eyes narrowed at the man. "That boy is your son."

"I'm aware of that." Potter's eyes grew hard. "He's also Lily's."

"Stating the obvious is redundant, Potter." Snape sneered. "Unless you actually forgot that little fact and only now remember, which wouldn't surprise me at all."

Potter didn't react to that gibe either. He stared at Snape for a moment before his eyes were once again drawn back to the grave. Snape watched him with disgust. Even he wouldn't have sunk so low as this, if Lily had chosen him over Potter. It only goes to show that perhaps Lily had never had very good taste in wizards despite public opinion. Her track record wasn't very good after all, as it was dominated by himself and Potter.

"Will you take him?" Potter asked again. He sounded more than impatient this time. Now he sounded desperate.

"You want to me to take you son? Shall I do it now or wait for him to be wrapped, Potter?" Snape sneered sarcastically. "Perhaps you could put him in a box, much more convenient to carry after all."

"Snape-"

"He is your son, Potter!" Snape snarled. "Even my bastard of a father wouldn't have simply given me away to his worst enemy!"

"But you loved her." Potter whispered brokenly and Snape froze. His face twisted in rage but the fool didn't even see as he still stared at the wet gravestone unblinkingly. "Don't deny it, Snape, she told me what you said to her at our wedding."

Snape flinched. He hadn't thought he could ever feel betrayed by Lily Evans. Even when she had married Potter, even when she had birthed his spawn, he hadn't held it against her. But betrayal it was, he could feel his stomach twisting in rage and embarrassment and horror. His worst enemy knew his greatest secret. A part of him wished Lily was alive so he could scream at her, the rest was glad she was dead as it deprived Potter of her presence. As it was his fingers itched to cast obliviate. With seven years of restraint trained into him he forced himself to not cast just yet.

"You flounder in the delusion I would love the boy simply because he's her son forgetting the fact that he is equally your son as well, Potter!" Snape couldn't control the rage in his voice, more than apparent as he watched his own spittle fly from his mouth on the last word and land just an inch away from Lily's grave.

And he wouldn't. Love the boy that is. That boy was the reason she was dead. That boy was the living and breathing symbol of her choice of Potter. Of course he wouldn't love the child, the boy. Snape wasn't nice and _was_the kind to hold a grudge even against an innocent.

"He has her eyes." Snape froze and his chest ached enough for him to stifle a gasp before he blinked and breathed and it beneath it his heart began to beat again. "They're so green, Snape. It's as it she's looking out them from somewhere beyond the veil."

He wanted to sneer; to scoff and insult and walk away. But a longing, a yearning, and desperate desire suddenly gripped him and choked off any word he thought to say. He wanted to see the boy. He wanted to see the child with Lily's eyes, eyes he never thought he'd see again.

Snape found himself staring at the grave as well, not the gravestone, but the soil, where buried deep down in the cold ground were the green eyes of Lily Evans. Lily Potter. Yet he knew if he dug her up, if he could bring himself to pull up the eyelid and bare the eye, the green would only be a color, as pale and lifeless as plucked grass.

"He's the perfect union of me and Lily, Snape." Potter whispered it so softly he was barely heard. "He looks just like me, except he has her eyes."

Suddenly hazel eyes pinned Snape in place and he struggled to keep his face impassive. Potter looked - fevered - unhinged. For a brief moment it seemed he had given way from grief into madness. Then his eyes cleared and he sighed.

"I know you hate me, Snape." His upper lip curled, and the ghost of his cruel smile could be seen. "I count on it. You will care for him, cause he's Lily's, see to his well being. But you won't love him. If you do you'll at least hate him as well. And when I'm ready to take him back, he won't be too attached to you. See, perfect?" Potter huffed what could have passed for a laugh as his cleverness. He looked away, glancing again at the gravestone, before dragging his eyes back to Snape's. "So, will you take him?"

Snape slowly drew in fresh air through his nose, careful not to let Potter see. The chill made his throat ache and a fleeting thought that it was Potter's utter coldness he was breathing in.

"And what," He began slowly, "Do I get out of this clever arrangement of yours?" Snape made his voice as chill as Potter's was when he asked 'will you take him?'

Potter smiled, it was faint, but shockingly genuine. "You get to have her a bit longer, Snape. I had them both for seven years." He huffed what could be a laugh again. "It's only fair you get your turn."

Snape smiled faintly back at Potter. Yes, perhaps it was only fair. The boy could stay with him, he would protect him. Dumbledore would approve and perhaps let him leave Hogwarts at least until the boy was eleven. And Potter had stupidly told him his reasoning. Idiot. Potter wanted Snape to take his son? Very well. He would. And when Potter got him back, the boy would hate him. It wouldn't be that hard to manipulate the boy into it.

The ultimate revenge against James Potter.

"You'll take him back before he enters Hogwarts?" Snape forced himself to sound resigned and grumpy, unhappy at being out maneuvered by Potter.

"Yes, yes. The summer before. Can you take him tonight?" Potter was looking at Snape but his fingers were twitching and reaching towards the grave behind his back. Snape's lips twitched as well. Potter was an idiot. It was never more clear.

"Bring him by Spinner's End." It would be easier to turn the boy against Potter if Potter was the one to bring him to Snape. It could be intimated he was giving the boy away instead of letting him be taken. Which he was, after all, it was only fair the boy know it.

Potter sighed in relief and smiled at Snape, a genuine smile, although it held triumph and an a hint of a smirk in it. It said 'I win, Snape.' Snape scowled back and abruptly turned his back on Potter, leaving him to his dead wife and her grave. Only when he had apparated did he allow himself the fainted of smirks.

The irony of it all was that, when the time was right, all it would be to make the boy hate Potter would be the memory of today. After careful molding of course. Such poetic justice made Snape actually want to laugh. He didn't, on today of all days it would be blasphemy, but he wanted to.

Snape made his way to the dingy derelict house, brushing past heavy wards, and made his way up to the door. He had much to do before the boy arrived. His old room would suffice for the boy, although it needed to be cleaned. And now that he could quit Hogwarts he would make more money. More time on his hands meant more new potions which meant he would soon be rich if he was clever enough.

Snape sighed in pleasure as he let himself into his house. Christmas was soon, and although he had never celebrated it he would have to, if only for the boy. Once he was here they would have to go shopping. No doubt the spoiled thing would love that. It didn't matter. Christmas was something he could adjust to. And perhaps he should find out more about Potter's family.

After all, he really ought to thank whomever taught Potter to share.

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Thnx for reading.

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Love,

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Fitful.


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